


Drip, drip, drop Little April Shower

by MeriJasmin



Series: Scuffing up the sidewalk with endlessly restless feet [1]
Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Also a bit fluffy?, Blind Character, Child Abuse, Dark, F/M, Freakshows, Hepatitis, Implied Molestation of a Child, Implied Murder, Kinda, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Revenge, Second Sight - Freeform, The Taylor Quintuplets - Freeform, Underage Drinking, cursing, exploitation of children, seriously
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-01-23 07:50:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18545452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeriJasmin/pseuds/MeriJasmin
Summary: It took Roger far too many years to realize that it didn’t matter how far he went, how many decades passed him by, or how successful he was in each of his endeavors… he would always be only 1/5 of a whole, 1/5 of a soul.Life…Love…They had made it so.Part of him, no matter how small, would always need his brothers.(Starring: Roger Taylor the unwilling Quintuplet. Featuring: The other 3/4 of Queen, Not-Roger 1, Not-Roger 2, Not-Roger 3, and Not-Roger 4).





	1. Gus

**Author's Note:**

> A million thanks, my soul and my firstborn to my most wonderful beta, the unconquerable @makesteverogersproud :)
> 
> Title and song quote is from Disney's April Shower (from Bambi), last song quote is from Queen's Drowse.
> 
> (Oh and just a reminder, The Taylor Quintuplets are inspired by The Dionne Quintuplets. More info is below if you're interested in learning about their story of maltreatment and injustice:
> 
> https://www.countryliving.com/life/kids-pets/a42542/dionne-quintuplets/
> 
> https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3863506/Tragedy-world-s-quintuplets-One-two-surviving-Dionne-sisters-82-penniless-living-care-home-son-disappeared-share-3million-settlement-awarded-government-make-circus-upbringing.html
> 
> https://www.thesprucecrafts.com/dionne-quints-alexander-doll-set-auction-149460
> 
> (ALSO! For a general synopsis of the Taylor Quins, please check out the first story in the series). :P :D Enjoy!

_“If one of you makes a mistake, then overcome it together. If one of you is happy, share it with the others. Joy, sorrow, anger, love are shared among the five of us in five equal parts!"_

-The Quintessential Quintuplets

 

 

They were warming up and doing soundcheck when Gus called.

Roger was rolling through his shoulders and pounding away on his drum-skins, trying to work out all the bus rides and lumpy hotel bed stiffness that had settled deep into his joints. Unfortunately, the constant playing at venue after venue meant that after months of beatings, night after night, his hands were thickly bandaged up like he was a mummy from the wrists down. The tape on his left hand wasn’t anywhere near cut-up enough to hold the stick properly though, and he made a mental note to have Crystal rough it up for him with a nail-file if warmup didn’t do the trick.

He was in the zone completely. Muscle memory guiding him through the rhythm sections that he’d mainly written himself but still needed to run through, as well as the new additions to their set that they hadn’t played through in a while. After so many years of jamming together and meshing their sound, his ears unconsciously tuned-in to John for the other half of his sonic volcano. John was an energy reservoir that he could feed off near the end if he started to falter.

He was half-worried about one of his sticks, the left one of course, wanting to fly out of his hand and off-stage behind him every time he twirled it mid-solo.

Luckily there was no one really near him until showtime, so downwind of his kit should have been safe…

“Roger!”

The only people in the world that he was listening for in his little bubble of percussive bliss were Deaky, Freddie and Brian. So the sound of Crystal’s frantic shout from behind him felt akin to slamming on the brakes of his shitty van while hitting black ice. Nails on a chalkboard.

The touchy drumstick left his hand, bounced off the nearest skin and snapped back to crack him across the eyebrow.

Instant white-hot pain stole part of his already shitty sight.

He yelped like a struck puppy and cradled the afflicted side of his face, grumbling every curse he could think of as he slumped against his kit until his head stopped ringing like a gong.

The cacophony of Roger’s domino effect and lucifer-worthy fall from grace, had John stopping mid-play with a sickening twang of his strings. Brian pulled a nasty face at the sound and then it was hastily replaced with one of the upmost concern, as his eyes flicked towards their moaning drummer. Freddie cut off mid-vocal warmup to gawk over at poor wounded Roger who had finally whipped around to glare at Crystal with his one uncovered teary eye.

“What the fuck, Crys!?”

“Shit, I’m sorry Rog, but you’ve got a call and it’s urgent.”

Crystal rarely looked flustered, to be a Queen roadie and Roger’s PA meant he had to be near-unflappable, but now he looked damn near wrecked with worry.

But Crystal didn’t just worry.

“Who is it?” Roger’s tongue felt heavy and misplaced in his mouth, his aching face long forgotten.

“What’s happened?” Freddie was in front of Roger’s kit at a moment’s notice, hands on his bony hips and the corners of his mouth creased with worry. _(Fred really was such a Mum when he wanted to be)._ Bri and Deaky soon followed suit, flocking over like a pair of concerned geese, guitars hanging limp and low against their bellies.

A visibly stressed Crystal was gnawing at his bottom lip and before the older man could think better of it, he quickly tugged Roger up and off his vinyl seat, forcefully nudging him towards the buses. All done before the drummer could so much as process what was happening to him. “Your brother I think? He sounded really upset, Rog. Distraught even. You need to talk to him.”

“Brother?” He dimly heard Freddie ask, confused. “I thought Rog only had the one little sister?”

Roger wasn’t listening anymore, not really, he was racing after Crystal in the vain effort to find a phone instead. The only reason one of his brothers would be calling him would be because a) one of them or b) someone they loved, was either dying or already dead. Funny how their relationship had up and gone down the shitter.

Rog’s long-suffering PA snatched up a cream-colored rotary phone off a nearby backstage suitcase, with its cord spiraling off into god knows where, and pressed the earpiece to Roger’s face. The blond drummer’s hands snapped up to catch and cradle it, while Crys hastily dialed in a number that he’d somehow managed to recall from memory in his state. Roger was pretty impressed.

Until the moment the line picked up and all he could hear was muffled sobbing on the other end. Shit.

“Hello?” Worry made his blood run through his veins like crushed ice.

There was an uncomfortable pause with rough hitched breathing across the line, Rog was even about to hang up when… “Roggie?” He would’ve known it anywhere, Gus’ voice, thick and clogged with tears as well as something unintelligible. But still very much his youngest brother’s voice.

Roger instantly felt like he was little April Showers again, holding his brother during yet another one of his horrible premonitions. The only time Gus was ever so blatantly emotional was when his shaking sightless blue eyes weren’t so sightless after all. When his _an dara sealladh_ , his second sight, his ‘gift’, struck again and April would often find himself holding his youngest brother while he screamed.

“Yeah, Gus-Gus, it’s me. What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

Who is it? He wanted to scream. What did you see?

“I’m okay.” A little breathy whisper, with a stress on the _I’m_ , the mouthpiece held too close to his brother’s undoubtedly chapped lips. Gus had always had a nasty habit of chewing on the corner of his bottom lip when they were little. “But your friend’s not.”

“What?” Part of the drummer didn’t want to know. But the other part of him had to.

“Your friend, the tall guitarist with the pretty eyes?” Roger decided not to dwell on the fact that his brother had no concept of the word pretty, not as a visual descriptor anyway. “He’s _sick.”_

If it was even possible, the oldest quintuplet felt his blood run colder. “Brian? What do you mean? Sick with what? _Gus, what did you see?”_

Just for once, why couldn’t his brother’s premonitions be that Queen’s next album was going to hit it big or that their abusive, exploitative, asshole of a father had died in a suspicious warehouse fire or something?

Something good for a change.

“He’s got a virus, one of the needles used for his jabs at the doctor for your last trip was contaminated. His liver’s dying and you need to get him to hospital.” His voice changed, shifted to something that sounded almost identical to the way it had on that night so long ago. “April, you need to get him there _now!”_

He wracked his brain, trying to dredge up those old Biology lectures from what seemed like a hundred years ago. Liver damage, inflicted by contaminated needle, virus… _Shit. Holy fucking shit_. He had no idea why it came to him, he’d never paid attention in any of those bloody classes, but the word came to him in his time of need, in Brian’s time of need. Roger recalled with painfully sharp clarity, a groggy morning a few days ago, where he’d seen a hint of something strange in the whites of Bri’s eyes on the way to breakfast. “Wait, are you saying he’s got _hepatitis?”_

The oldest could practically hear Gus frantically nod his head across the line, the rustling revealed all. “Yes, that’s it! He’s going to get a cut on his arm and it will start to rot. His intestines will sicken inside of his body, all ulcerated and bloody… and it’s so bad, Roger you can’t wait any longer!”

He thought back to that pact they’d made as children, Sorrel’s body not even cold in the ground.

When August cried, they would always listen. No matter what. No matter where.

Because August was never wrong.

The drummer swallowed hard with a moaned, “Holy shit.” His throat felt like he was gargling with razor blades. No matter how many times he ran over that scenario in his head, it felt as though his life and all its multiple universes had just played, like the worst sort of movie, on the backs of his eyelids. “He’s a guitarist, he can’t lose his arm, Gus. It’ll destroy him.”

“I know. He’s like Shelley.”

Roger did not have time enough on the planet to try and decipher the cryptic double innuendo in that statement.

Instead, he slumped against the wall, or maybe it was their instrument cases stacked high to the sky. Either way, it was cool to the touch and he really didn't care anymore. “Right, I’m going to get him there now.” Come hell or high water, he was getting Brian to hospital, the tour be damned. It was Mott’s tour anyway.

“…Roger, wait!” His brother sounded so very young.

“What? Is there something else? Gus?”

He could see his brother’s face in his mind, the same chubby cheeks, blond hair and parted smile. Not simply his own face staring back at him, not completely anyway. Contrary to popular belief, the Quins could tell themselves apart, even facially. Not just Gus, whose eyes were visibly different, but even Shelley, who was the closest to Roger when he had to compre. Every line, freckle and mole was cataloged.

_(There used to be porcelain dolls of them._

_Madame Alexander Quintuplet Dolls._

_With either painted on whorls of blond hair or sunshine blond cornsilk hair that fuzzed up from their porcelain heads. Always in little polos and tiny shorts, unless the Quins were babies, then they were dolled up in christening dresses with little red lip pouts._

_They were worth upwards of 2,000 USD now, only found in antique shops and the like. Roger dreaded the day when he and Fred would be working at their Kensington stall and some kind grandmotherly woman would pass along an old set of Taylor Quintuplets in their little wicker basket._

_He wasn’t sure if he could truly stop himself from gleefully crushing those little hand-painted heads underneath his boots._

_He could never tell the dolls apart._

_They had the same face)_.

“I just love you, okay?” Roger could hear the puffed out cheeks and scowl, the crossed arms and turned away pout that Gus was undoubtedly sporting. “I miss you.” Grumbled out like Rog wasn’t actually supposed to hear it.

A certain fondness bubbled under the skin where Roger’s heart was, even as it clenched in worry for Bri.

There would always be a tiny spot just above his beating heart, where April would be scrawled, in a place no one could see, a place just for him.

Marked up in indelible ink.

“I miss you too.”

He remembered the twilight days of their early childhood and the way the freakshow they called home would be nearly empty on rainy days. The five of them would cuddle up in a big open trunk, shielded from the deluge by the edges of the canvas tent, and watch the rain fall with big blue eyes that could scarcely blink. Sometimes Gus would sing, even though the youngest of the Quins couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket.

“ _Drip, drip, drop_  
_Little April shower_  
_Beating a tune_  
_As you fall all around_

 _Drip, drip, drop_  
_Little April shower_  
_What can compare_  
_To your beautiful sound…”_

Roger didn’t know he’d miss them so much when he left. His Brat Pack, his Quins, his rough and tumble brothers who he loved and hated with equal abandon.

Maybe because he had never thought it was possible to have a life without them. Not really.

All their lives they were raised under the presumption that they were one person in five bodies, five halves of the same whole. Most of Roger’s long held resentment was of that very same fact. He hated the ultimate truth of his life. That he was never allowed to exist as the center of his own universe. That he was merely a planet, they all were, revolving around their sun: the circumstances of their unusual birth.

Circumstances that through his biology courses, he knew all too well.

He intimately knew all the ways that, according to human anatomy, they should have killed their mother.

Having identical quintuplets was a roughly one in fifty-seven million crackshot and for good reason. A full-term baby was grown in a 40-week gestational period, while most quintuplet births occurred at twenty-nine weeks, part of the reason that whole sets rarely survived. Their mother’s womb was at full-term size by the end of the first trimester, so she needed to have her cervix sewn shut to prevent them from being delivered even earlier than they already were. In the end, she delivered them naturally, which nearly resulted in her being torn in half and bleeding out. She was hospitalized for nearly a year on and off afterwards and was never really well again until they were seven years old.

But even that was pushing it.

Roger hated having to sit through that fucking lecture over and over again. The same information presented to him every semester on _Twins and Higher Order Births_ , it never changed. So he just didn’t go, he’d skipped class for far lesser reasons. Plenty of them.

Brian bitched, Deaky looked at him with those disapproving eyes that would make him a wonderful father one day, and Freddie sighed hypocritically, when they all saw him bugger off school that day.

But he refused to do it.

He couldn’t sit through that bullshit and see the professor hold up the same photographs of the five tiny Taylor Quintuplets _(one of them in that delightful wicker basket, one of them in their sailor suits, one of them in pastel booties and bonnets etc.)_ and pass every single one around the room.

“The only complete set of still-living identical quintuplets in the world!”

Roger wouldn’t be held responsible for the surrounding students that he would cover with his ensuing vomit if he had to sit through it.

He walked back to the stage where his bandmates waited, with legs that felt like they’d been sculpted from molds of gelatin.

The drummer clambered up the steps to the stage, like a toddler pushing up on his hands just learning to walk. Wobbling dangerously, he likely would have fallen if it wasn’t for the way Crystal’s hand reached over to steady him, his dark eyes full of concern. _‘You okay?’_ The PA mouthed to him and all Rog could manage to do was shake his head.

“Oh, Rog…”Apparently the look on his face was enough to give him away and Freddie was holding him within an instant. Cupping the blond’s face between his shoulder and chin. “Are you alright? Is everyone okay?” Roger said nothing at all, just breathed in Freddie’s scent and used him as anchor to ground himself once more. The experience of talking to any of his Quins was a surefire way to fuck him up inside. And this time he had the bonus feeling of foreboding about Bri’s fate. “Roggie?”

“Brian.” It was the only word that he could manage and it came out like a mix between a cry and a moan.

A warm hand instantly smoothed over the little space between his shoulder blades.

“I’m here, Rog.”

Yes, and that’s where you’re staying goddammit.

He swallowed hard, steeled himself, and purposefully burst into tears, complete with loud, juicy, hiccuping sobs to add to the allure.

April Meddows Taylor did not _cry._

Well… not since he’d become Roger, let’s just say he wasn’t nicknamed April Showers for no reason. But the idea of losing Brian, the stress of the phone-call with Gus and his only real plan for getting them to hospital without having to explain _‘yeah, so we have to go to hospital right now because my psychic brother says you have hepatitis’,_ involved pathetic Roger and tears… so yeah, not one of his finer moments. But fuck it, he’d do anything for Brian. Even sob like a piss-baby in front of everyone and ruin his reputation.

They all looked shell-shocked, even poor Deaky was gaping at the sight of him dissolving into bits in front of them. Goodbye pride, I hardly knew ye.

Yet for all their coaxing and cajoling he only gasped out a pitiful: “Hospital… please… my brother…” between his half-crocodile tears. And he needn’t have said anymore. Within minutes they were in a car heading towards the nearest hospital. All three of his boys holding onto him in a way they knew he felt comforted by.

Deaky wasn’t a very tactile person, nor was Brian particularly, while Freddie’s preference depended on the moment, but Rog was always up for a cuddle. He wasn’t sure if it was due to the fact that he had spent the majority of his life cuddled up with four other humans, but touch had always been his security blanket. A quirk his Quins all shared as well.

He buried his nose in Brian’s neck and held on for all he was worth, not wanting to search his best-friend’s narrow face for signs of illness, he’d leave that up to the professionals. He would just hold the guitarist in his arms and try to imbue all of it, the immeasurable wealth of love for Bri that he carried around with him always, into the ailing man. You are far too loved to be ill, Brian Harold May.

At the beginning he’d been so worried that he was using Brian, Freddie and John as a crutch.

A replacement for the brothers that he still needed so desperately. But it wasn’t like that, his heart had simply grown to accommodate all of them.

He just had seven brothers now instead of just the four.

_(The pain of not being around his Quins hadn’t lessened one bit through Queen, and that smarted quite a bit)._

He wasn’t sure what the boys were expecting when they got to the hospital, but for Roger to walk up to the front desk and announce _: “My friend here has hepatitis and we’ve been in close contact with him the last couple of months”_ certainly hadn’t been it.

Brian was aghast.

“What?! I haven’t got hepatitis!”

“Yes, you do.” The blond scowled, “And you should have told us you were feeling sick you numpty!” He snatched up a surgical mask from behind the nurses’ station. “Put this on, you’re already immunocompromised and these people are disgusting.” Roger grimaced at all the diseased patients filling the waiting room, practically coughing and sneezing on top of one another.

“I haven’t got hepatitis!” Bri squawked.

He had hepatitis.

They all got shots in the bum and Brian got dosed up with bags full of IV medication and several prescriptions to be filled once they got home to London.

Roger could see the way the idea of letting everyone down weighed heavily on the curly-haired guitarist. No matter what any of them said to the contrary, Brian was always going to blame himself for their ’74 American tour getting cut short. Brian was just like that. But fuck it all, Roger would much rather have an unfinished tour under his belt than his best-friend six-feet under. Thank you very much.

The question wasn’t asked until they were on the plane.

“How did you know?”

Roger hummed from where he was delicately carding his fingers through Brian’s curls, appreciating the bounce and shine. Happy that the guitarist was on his way to being happy and healthy once more. And that they’d avoided the crises that were to come if Bri had remained untreated.

“Roger, how did you know I had hep?” Bri was drooping against Roger’s chest, sleepy but curious. Just like _Schrödinger's cat._

“My uh… brother told me.”

“The one you were on the phone with? Before you burst into tears and scared us out of our skins?” Brian asked with a mock-glare on his face and a muttered, _“you jackass”_ tacked on under his breath for good measure. Then he furrowed his eyebrows. “Has he been to a concert… or seen me recently?”

“Nope.”

“Then how…?” The rest of Brian’s question was lost by a yawn.

Freddie and John looked equally confused by the exchange and the drummer shrugged.

“Look, I can’t explain it, okay?” He really couldn’t. “Gus is _different._ He’s always just known stuff. Stuff he shouldn’t know, like if a baby is going to be born a boy or a girl, or when you’re going to die or your next husband’s middle name… He just knows things. And he knew you were sick.”

John prodded next, after taking it all in. Freddie was nodding like he understood and Brian was conked out and drooling on Roger’s neck. The shock must have done him in. “And you believed him?”

“Yeah, ‘cause Gus is always right.”

Gus it turned out, was also amazing inspiration.

Roger soon found himself scribbling away on a airline sickness bag, with words that came from him unheeded.

Most of his song-writing was like that.

He thought of his quintuplet brothers, of their teenage years spent together.

_Bram and Roger smoking outside during lunch-hour, sharing a pack of Marlboro Reds. Pads putting Shelley’s ice-skates in his locker because he always had the most room. Gus walking with them in the hallways, sandwiched between Shelley and Roger like usual, listening acutely for anyone talking shit about his brothers. If a nasty word happened to be spat while the quintet walked by, they would unexpectedly feel the crushing power of a Braille typewriter meeting their crotch._

_“Oops.” With a smile that said it was anything but an accident._

_Weekends spent in the tiny town pool hall._

_Gus hustling a couple of tourists by pretending to be the poor pathetic blind kid until he won a game in three moves. “Oh wow, look at that, ten quid please.”_

_The five of them getting blasted drunk far earlier than they should have._

_Which resulted in them checking that yes, their dicks were actually identical as well. They were, although Bram could straight-shot piss a whole lot farther than the rest of them._

_And the five of them flopped down on their backs, laying on damp dewy grass, staring up at the magnificent stars in the sky. No matter how old Roger got, he would always be able to picture that sky perfectly. To feel the soft, sticky grass beneath his head and the sweaty, warm feeling of his brothers’ hands clasped with his._

_“Isn’t amazing?” Shelley whispered, taking it all in as he tugged off his school blazer and tucked it around Bram, who was growing a little pale from the cold. Shelley was the bitchiest, but something made Roger believe he loved the hardest too, even though Paddington (the emotional maxi-Pad he was) could show it a lot better._

_“Yeah… can you believe that out there in the city, they don’t see the stars like this?” Paddington added, his bright voice nearly lost in the caressing night wind that rustled their hair, but didn’t make them shiver. “I don’t think they see anything at all.”_

_“Oh yeah, wonder what that’s like.” Gus quipped from where he was securely tucked underneath Roger’s armpit._

_They all froze and then nearly pissed themselves laughing._

Oh God, they were so fucking drunk…

But he still smiled about it, even all these years later.

It wasn’t fair that he had to leave them behind to find himself, when without them… he’d never really be _whole._

  
“ _Half of the time we'd broaden our minds_  
_More in the pool hall_  
_Than we did in the school hall…”_

  
_-_ X-

  
_“Do you have any idea what my home life was like? Growing up with six sisters who looked exactly like me? It was like I didn't even have my own name! I joined the circus because I was scared of spending the rest of my life as part of a matched set._

_At least I'm different now.”_

-Avatar: The Last Airbender

 


	2. Shelley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here we go guys! 
> 
> :D

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Features: Alice of Human Sacrifice by Razzy and Co. and Yugami P.  
> Pink Elephants on Parade from Dumbo  
> Drowse by Queen
> 
> :P
> 
> Also! 
> 
> "Quint" -USA
> 
> "Quin"- UK/Europe 
> 
> (Thank you so much for reading and for every single comment and kudo! I promise I will respond to every single comment! (Just need a minute to get caught up) <333)

_“The first Alice walked_  
_Into the woods of Wonderland_  
_Bravely, with a fearsome sword_  
_Held tightly in her hand_  
_Slicing down whatever laid_  
_In her unyielding wrath_  
_Leaving chaos in her wake_  
_By a red bloody path.”_

 

  
Shelley’s signature move was the triple axel, notched four times in a row.

He was the first skater to ever land the triple in competition, and of course the first to do multiple in a row.

_(Roger knew how big that was to the figure-skating world, even if that world wasn’t necessarily his own)._

It was one of the hardest jumps that his younger Quin could perform reliably, and it all started with the approach. A forward take-off from the outside edge of Shelley’s right blade, the younger Taylor having to kick up with one leg while he pre-turned to gain more angular momentum, then the compressive snap into a tight rotation as soon as possible while fully arcing in the air, a full three and a half spins above the ground, then the touchdown on the ball of his opposite left skate.

Of course, Shelley’s barely one-hundred-and-twenty pound body would also hit the ice _(hard as concrete)_ with about four-hundred and eighty pounds of force, all on the one delicate foot. Then do it three more times consecutively, all while smiling from ear-to-ear and twirling with a distracting grace.

Roger’s sac-buddy was made of nothing but pure stubbornness, the chubby cheeks that they all shared no matter what weight, and pure muscle.

The drummer was still loath to think about the state of his brother’s knees after all the years of jumping and slamming down again, but Shelley was like the Energizer Bunny, always ready to go again.

Which was why Roger was sitting in their living room, a newly bought telly only inches away as he watched his brother skate on-screen.

Representing the UK at the _1975 World Figure Skating Championships._

Shelley was going for yet another 1st place Worlds title and Roger preened when he saw the looks on the faces of the other competitors, as the camera panned away from them.

They all knew that if Shelley Taylor was competing, then it wasn’t a fight for 1st… it was a fight for the podium at all.

The boy was dressed like a complete loon, a glittery crushed velvet jumpsuit hugging his skin all the way down to his battered knees, where it started to ruffle. His long fluffy blonde hair was in a high ponytail, with his wispy crimped bangs covering up his forehead, complete with bangs that Roger hated with every fiber of his being.

He watched his brother spin around and around on his feather-thin blades and remembered when they were little and the second-eldest quintuplet twirling around in their tiny play area where they were put on display like pickled punks.

Five oddities.

_Five pink elephants on parade._

He remembered that look on Shelley’s face when the onlookers started to laugh at his antics.

His arms slowly lowering, his rosebud mouth pulling into a frown, tears filling his eyes _(one of the few expressions of true human emotional pain that he would ever see from his hard-ass Quin brother)._

The next time they laughed at Shelley, it was because he wanted them to. Marking himself out as the charmer, the perfectionist… the talented one.

 _“Pink elephants on parade_  
_What'll I do? What'll I do?_  
_What an unusual view!_  
_I could stand the sight of worms_  
_And look at microscopic germs_  
_But technicolor pachyderms_  
_Is really much for me…”_

Roger watched as his brother launched up from the ice and into a triple-double-triple toe-loop combo, eyes dancing and face as open bright as a damp veiny sunflower in first bloom, petals unfurling like hummingbird’s wings as he pounded that ice with everything he had, a skating powerhouse.

The oldest Taylor may have been wrecked from months of touring, sick as all fuck with the flu of the century, a headache thumping like a quintuplet beat on his snare drum behind his eyes. But he wouldn’t miss watching his brother skate in Worlds. Not for the world.

And it was comforting to know that in Liverpool, Gus was huddled up with a couple of sighted friends for their verbal play-by-play of the long and short programs.

That in Los Angeles, Bram was in a crowded pub, eyes locked on the telly screen as he waved a lighter flame over his calloused open palm, cheering for Shelley under his breath.

That in New York City, all work was ceased in Paddington’s art studio as he watched, smiling ear-to-ear in an echo of Shelley’s, his hands skittering across a page as he sketched his brother mid step-sequence. Freezing their skating Quin at the end of his sequence, sinking into a split stretch, with one leg bent between his thigh and the ice to support himself, the other straight behind him with skate lying flat, arms raised high.

All of them blessed with the rare sight of Shelley going through spin after spin, until he reached the point where everything was a blur and he was finally weightless, finally free, and wholly untethered.

It still brought tears to Roger’s eyes.

Tears that he blamed on coughing so hard he nearly fractured his larynx instead of feelings, of course.

It was also why, or so he claimed, that he didn’t hear Brian or Deaky approach.

Not until there was a lanky guitarist pushing a plate of dry half-burnt toast into his hands, cut into little mismatched triangles. It looked unappetizing as all hell and Roger refused to spare a moment to down it. Not when those moments could be spent watching Shelley skate.

_Shelley._

His crystalline blue eyes widened.

His Shelley who was skating on-screen in front of them, all of them.

Shelley who looked like a carbon-copy of Roger to the rest of the world, down to the spattering of freckles on his nose and the way his eyes were just a little too big, when compared to the rest of his face. Even if that indiscriminate identical component wasn't really the case to the Taylor brood. _(They had always been able to tell each other apart, it was Roger’s favorite party trick)._

_Oh Shelley._

Fuck, they were going to _see._

“Eat it Rog, you look a bit peaky.”

John’s melodic voice was forcefully gentle despite the command, a stark contrast to the long-suffering look on Bri’s face and the exasperated roll of his dark eyes. As if Roger was trying to be sick and annoying.

Instead of obeying, the blond leaned forwards to reach out and snatch up the control-box for the TV, sitting innocently on the coffee table next to Freddie’s cheap copy of a blue antique Chinese vase from one of those older dynasties, dancing swans painted up the sides… _or maybe they were cranes?_ … he didn’t really care, he just knew that they couldn't possibly _see—_

“Holy shit! Roger!” Freddie all but shrieked directly behind them, hands fluttering around his mouth. Fuck! The drummer resisted the urge to groan and cradle his ears in his hands, jeez Fred.

_“You didn’t tell us you had a twin!”_

One manicured finger pointing at his chest accusingly.

_Well fuck._

Of course all the eyes had gone to the screen at the exact same moment that Shelley was doing a post-routine lap around the ice. The camera zoomed in on his face, those bloody crimped bangs turned a mass of fuzzy frizz on his forehead, and looking far too similar to Roger after a long gig, damp and ecstatic.

_Shelley Taylor, everyone! Britain’s own Olympic Gold medalist and former National Champion, a pioneer in the world of men and women’s figure skating. He is an ultimate joy to watch, truly gifted at the sport!_

_Can you believe he’s only twenty-four?_

Roger had sat through a shit ton of chemistry classes for his major, retaining just about nothing from the school chemists forcibly-turned professors and the thick swipe-click of chalk on a board.

Although he did remember one concept.

It was called _chirality._

Long story short, a molecule that was considered _chiral_ was meant to be non-superimposable. While an _achiral_ molecule was identical, non-distinguishable and superimposable.

The world loved to see him and his brothers as achiral molecules, identical and indistinguishable when compared to one another, easily superimposable, cookie-cutter blond angel babies. But in truth they were chiral, it didn’t matter how you compared them or laid them on top of one another, they were not a perfect match. They would never be a perfect match.

For some reason, that thought always filled Roger with such relief. A scientific justification.

He flashed a sheepish smile at his bandmates as he shoved half a piece of ashy toast into his mouth in one go.

“Oops. Must have slipped my mind.”

He mumbled around the dry bite the size of a horse pill and the rough swallow that followed.

_Technically he had four twins?_

“Slipped your mind?” Freddie parroted back, numbly. Then with a hell of a lot more conviction. _“Slipped your mind?!”_ The singer was twirling on the precipice of a dramatic tantrum, loud enough to rival Roger’s own. “Checking the date of the milk in the fridge, buying postage stamps, doing the washing-up, those are things that can slip your mind! …How on earth do you forget a _person?!”_

Brian was squinting at the telly like it held all of life’s greatest secrets within its depths. “He’s an ice-skater?” Then those dark orbs widened into twin moons. “Oh. A really good one.”

 _“Figure skater,”_ Roger corrected quietly, feeling a touch nauseous, his belly churning beneath his hands.

 _“Oh. My. God.”_ John whispered, pale as a powdered doughnut, saying the accursed words. “There are _two Rogers_ alive on this planet, right now. _We’re all doomed.”_

It was a harmless joke, it was meant to be a harmless joke. Yet anger and indignation bloomed in the pit of the blond’s uneasy stomach.

Bri flashed John a small smile, Freddie chuckled, while Roger only wanted to wring their sodding necks.

He remembered being _April,_ having that bloody word emblazoned on his chest every moment of every day. His animal tag, his only marker to the outside world of who he was.

Barely having his own name, never having his own face, and certainly never being his own person.

Maybe part of the reason he was so afraid of the boys knowing about the Quins was _that_ right there. He didn’t want to go back to being only 1/5 of a person. He couldn’t do it again, not with them. Not with his band. Not when he _finally_ had a life of his own.

_An old woman reached into their enclosure at the freakshow once, before the glass was put in._

_She grabbed a fistful of his downy blond hair and chopped part of it clean off. Twirling the cut lock around her fingers._

_The ticketers charged her half-price for the ‘fertility charm’._

_Since she’d done all the hard work of snipping it herself._

  
_Roger wasn’t treated like a real human being until he was seven years old._

  
He flung a piece of dry toast hard at John’s head, his blue eyes blazing like icy fire, the hottest part of a flame.

His hands were shaking as he pressed them into a pair of fists. 

Later on, he would blame it on the fever making him emotional, but he leapt to his feet regardless.

The change in position making him sway dizzily, yet he held his ground.

“No.” His voice was colder than the ice crystals glittering in his stare. “There is _one_ Roger Meddows Taylor on the planet, _John. One._ You don’t get to _do_ that!” Fists shaking. “You don’t get to take away _my identity, my autonomy.”_ His voice broke like an expensive wine glass. “I am not a copy, I am not a second-rate anything and I am certainly _not my brother!”_ He wasn’t sure when he started yelling, but he did see the shock and hurt appear plain as day on Deaky’s face, yet he didn’t falter. “That is an insult to _me_ and an insult to _him!_ I have spent my entire life as only a piece of a whole person and _I will not go back to being less than a human being ever again!”_

He was fighting for air by the end of his rant, panting with his round face as red as a tomato.

His next cogent thought was: _Shit, what have I done?_

John had recoiled from him, as though the blond had just slapped him clean across the face _(he had, metaphorically)_ , and he still looked so shocked.

“Deaky, I _didn’t…_ ” Rog wheezed as he bit down hard on his bottom lip, looking away from the blame and surprise on their faces. “Shit.”

He _did._

Roger slumped back down onto the beige couch with his feverish head cradled in his trembling hands, closing his eyes at how the world swam sickeningly before them. “I’m not mad at you, I shouldn’t have yelled. It’s just… it’s a rough topic.” _An amazingly rough topic._

The idiot drummer contemplated using Bri’s _Red Special_ to stab himself in the gut _(despite the fact that Bri would probably kill him before the blood loss did),_ but Deaky only laid a steady hand on his knee. That candid forgiving and understanding smile alight on his lips. He hated being looked at like that, with so much fucking love and care.

“It’s okay, Rog. You’re poorly and I shouldn’t have said that.” Fuck, why did the bassist have to be so _nice_ about it? So bloody _understanding?_ “No one likes to be lumped in with their siblings like that, I should have known you would be upset.” The hand squeezed his thigh reassuringly. But it only made Roger feel sicker.

“It was a joke, Deaks. I’m just a right bitch.” _Worse than Shelley._

John pointedly shook his head and narrowed his eyes, a flash of stubborn bull-headed Deaky, the sass master, showing through. “No, you’re upset, Rog. And you can say so, we aren’t going to string you up for it.” His tone gentle, but unrelentingly firm. Roger swallowed hard, keeping his eyes lowered so they couldn’t see the bitter tears that welled up in their depths.

“In fact, we all want you to be honest with us.” Brian chimed in, coming over to sling his arm around the blond’s shoulders, just like he had when they’d first joined up to form Smile. Years upon years later, and he’d kept the same best-friend through it all. “You need to tell us these things, mate.”

“I guess, if I have to.” Roger pretended to gripe and found himself painfully unable to hide the way his voice wavered, thick and impossibly uncomfortable. But they didn’t say anything about it. “Sorry for not telling you about Shelley.” The guilt was tightening around his throat and he could just see his Quins looking at him with such sorrow and anger at the sound of that. Wondering why they were such a source of _shame_ for him.

“Shelley? I thought that was Gus?” John’s eyebrows furrowed.

Roger’s lips were pressed tight as he shook his head. “No, Gus is younger than Shelley and I.” _By a few minutes, but eh._

“You’ve got too many brothers, Roggie.” Freddie’s purposeful fingers found a place in those tufts of downy blond hair, a shaggy and sweaty mess.

The hair they all shared. _Gus’ hair. Bram’s hair. Paddington’s hair._

_Shelley’s hair._

“Well, regardless. We know now.” A gentle bop on his nose, Freddie’s forgiving smile.

The blond swallowed hard as the right words escaped him once more. “…About that…”

“Hm?” All three pairs of eyes instantly looked up and searched his own, they trusted him. _(It scared him sometimes that there wasn’t four pairs anymore)._

“Oh, nothing.”

He waved it away, his chest pulled tight, anxious fingers tapping out a quintuplet drum beat on his thighs. His body’s subliminal way of telling the truth.

Then he puked on the already-sticky carpet between his feet.

  
_“There's all the more reason for laughing and crying_  
_When you're younger and life isn't too hard at all_

 _And there's all the more reason_  
_For living or dying when you're young_  
_And your troubles are all very small…”_

 

-X-

  
Shelley was _The Pleaser._

In the same way that Gus was _The Seer,_  Bear was _The Lover_ , Bram was _The Hatter_ and Roger was _The Protector._

All of them knew that Shelley was a perfectionist, that he was a bitch in the truest sense of the word, and that he was the unspoken leader of the Quins. It was just the way things were. The way the cookie crumbled.

He was the first to smile and wave and act the little fool for their freakshow audience’s enjoyment as a little boy, he would always put on a show for the people around him. The two-faced fucking gemini he was.

Now he just did it through skating.

As a child, he was the first to approach people, happy to answer the most asinine questions and recite his times tables or the bloody titles of the Queen, if it were asked of him.

Roger also knew that they shared a lot of personality flaws, Shelley's were simply magnified to a hundred.

They were far too alike _(which he blamed on them sharing a sac)._

If he fought with Bram, in his usual dramatic fashion, then he would get an icy stare or a patronizing eye-roll, but little else. If he fought with Pads, guilt would practically consume him and the more sensitive Quin would burst into tears. If he fought with Gus, he would receive nothing but sarcastic comebacks and then a gentle: _‘Are you okay?’_ in return, it was infuriating.

Yet, if he fought with Shelley?

They would put each other in _hospital._

Rolling around in a violent tussle, ripping out chunks of each others’ hair, biting, kicking, punching, an all out _brawl._

Bram and Gus usually had to break them up, while Bear played mediator.

But Roger never ever doubted how much Shelley loved him.

Not when he’d seen the evidence every day as a little boy.

As a child, when he’d slipped and fallen while playing, it was Shelley who kissed his booboos better. Shelley who took care of them when they got sick and always made sure they had food to eat and a warm place to sleep, tucking them in and kissing them goodnight.

Shelley took care of them when no one else did, back when they were too young to take care of themselves.

When Roger left first, he knew it was Shelley that he hurt the most.

It was raining that day.

_Drip, drip, drop…_

Just like it was raining that night, when one of the tents at the circus burnt down.

It was during the end of a show and the small tent was meant to be used as part of the menagerie, but it was empty at the time. There was only one fatality, one of the older roustabouts, meant to put up and tear down the set every night.

He was drunk and hadn’t been able to get out in time.

The circus was turned to chaos, Stars and Stripes playing in the background, as the performers and non alike frantically tried to remove all the townies from the place and control the blaze. _(Which wasn’t too hard, the tent was actually several feet away from any others)._

The Quins were separated for a good majority of it.

Paddington, Roger and Gus were all together, coughing through the smoke and searching for Bram and Shelley. Bear was trembling as he clung to Gus, who in turn clung to Roger to lead the way.

Roger couldn’t remember being more scared in all of his life.

The fire exploded across the night’s sky like a painful beacon of suffocating light and flame, and the animals were going crazy in their pens, more than afraid for their lives.

He could scarcely hear himself think and couldn’t stop crying from the sheer shock alone.

It was only when his missing brothers were safe in his arms once more, that he could manage to even take in a breath.

It was a funny thing to share a soul.

Shelley was crying as well, his face dampened with soot and tears as he buried it in Roger’s neck.

His hair stunk of alcohol and his pants were gone, the younger boy was left with nothing but his gray boxers to cover up his pale chubby legs, those facts stuck with Roger for a long time. They were only six years old, so he couldn’t really process what it all meant back then (and he was afraid to now).

_Shelley’s hair stunk of alcohol and his pants were gone._

It wasn’t the first time the second-eldest quintuplet had returned to them from his excursions in the same way, only usually his trousers were just unbuttoned or his shirt was untucked. Little things that perfectionist Shelley would never ordinarily tolerate.

But this was the only time that Bram had gone out to look for him and returned with him in tow, usually they couldn’t find Shelley when they tried to look.

Bram’s clothing was untouched, and his face as calm and as cold as ever, as eerie as usual.

Only now, he had a new toy.

An expensive heavy silver lighter that he was playing with, clicking _on and off, on and off._ A soothing rhythm.

Alcohol was a very good accelerant.

 _On and off. On and off,_ went the lighter. The same one that Roger carried in his pocket today.

Shelley would do anything for his brothers, anything to keep them safe, even make himself the center of attention when people came to gawk.

He was a good _Pleaser_ , even if Roger was a real shit _Protector._

The oldest quintuplet slowly ran his thumb over the initials carved into the heavy silver: _SVR._

Not _JBT._

And he too, flicked it on and off.

  
“ _Then Alice strayed too far_  
_Lost within the woods_  
_Giving in to all her sins_  
_Locking her away for good_  
_Much like the gruesome path_  
_That marked her evil ways_  
_Still her life remains a mystery_

_'Till this very day…”_

 

**Author's Note:**

> Here are all the boys' names (for reference, in order of birth):
> 
> April Meddows Taylor (Roger)  
> May Shelley Taylor (Shelley)  
> June Paddington Taylor (Paddington/Bear)  
> July Bram Taylor (Bram)  
> August Quincy Taylor (Gus)


End file.
